New Japan wrapped up their 2025 with the final event of the Road To TOKYO DOME Tour and the Hiroshi Tanahashi retirement road, the last event before his retirement match at Tokyo Dome.
Today’s event was held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on New Japan World FOR FREE!!! No account or paid subscription required! No YouTube as a result.
The announced paid attendance was 1515, a legit sellout.
Match 1: NJPW WORLD TV Champion El Phantasmo beat TBA, revealed at match time to be Ryusuke Taguchi, to retain the title. V5 for Phantasmo. Next up: Possibly DDT wrestler Chris Brookes, who attacked Phantasmo post-match and issued the challenge. According to DDT’s official English social media, the challenge is for Tokyo Dome.
Match 2; Boltin Oleg, YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto beat Tiger Mask, Satoshi Kojima & Taichi. YOSHI-HASHI pjnned TM 4.
Match 3: Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Yujiro Takahashi, Ren Narita, SANADA & EVIL beat Master Wato, Yoh, Toru Yano, Yuya Uemura & Shota Umino. Narita pinned Wato. Afterwards, a House Of Torture beatdown commenced until DDT’s Kaisei Takechi made the save, surely to the delight of female fans in attendance.
Match 4: Jacob Austin Young, Callum Newman & Great-O-Khan beat Gedo, Hiromu Takahashi & David Finlay. Newman pinned Gedo after Overkill. Afterwards, Newman revealed one of the two TBA for United Empire in the 10-man tag at Tokyo Dome…Andrade El Idolo. Supposedly Andrade has a 1 year no-compete clause due to being let go again by WWR for drug program violations but I’d heard a “one-time exception” was being negotiated by his legal team. This must be it.
Match 5: Sho & DOUKI beat KUUKAI & El Desperado and Daiki Nagai & Taiji Ishinori in a 3-way when DOUKI pinned Nagai.
Match 6: Yota Tsuji, OSKAR (The Grouch) & Yuto Ice (Ice Baby) beat Hartley Jackson, Ryohei Oiwa & Zack Sabre Jr. Tsuji pinned Jackson after Gene Blaster.
Main Event: Hiroshi Tanahashi beat Kosei Fujita. Afterwards, Tanahashi said farewell to the venue where he made his debut and performed one final Korakuen epic air guitar show to send the fans home happy.
2025 has now come to a close for New Japan and the Hiroshi Tanahashi Retirement Road has reached the final stop because…
The next event, the first of 2026, is WRESTLE KINGDOM 20 in TOKYO DOME, the biggest annual event in Japanese pro wrestling and maybe biggest in the world after WWE WrestleMania, on 1/4 at the Tokyo Dome. The event is a legit advance sellout. Live streaming EXCLUSIVELY on New Japan World OUTSIDE JAPAN ONLY will begin on 1/3 at 11 PM PT/2 AM ET. This will be a live & exclusive TV Asahi broadcast in Japan only. Additionally, a special program looking back at Tanahashi’s career will be aired on New Japan World FOR FREE Wednesday beginning at 1:30 AM PT/4:30 AM ET.